Verschlüsselte E-Mails unverschlüsselt speichern

Symptom: You exchange encrypted mail with a friend, but would like to store it unencrypted, once you have opened the message.

Solution: To store emails that have been decrypted once in unencrypted format henceforth, add this to your kmailrc configuration file, in the [Reader] section:

store-displayed-messages-unencrypted=true

This may only work with SMIME but implementation for OpenPgP is being worked on.

Spam filtering on an IMAP server

Symptom: You intend moving on to reading your mail from an IMAP server, and wonder how filtering and spam handling will occur?

Solution: The machine that already has your mail can become your imap server. You will need to configure a server application. Dovecot is one such, and the guidance on the project web pages make it easy to set up. That still leaves you with the problem of filtering, as it makes sense to do it on the server (when you point kmail at the server you will see the folders that you have created on the server). Again there are options, but one of the best known is procmail. Again there is plenty of information on the Internet on how to set this up. You give it a set of "recipes" - here's an example:

If you have maildir folders, each recipe must end with a "/". If your folders are mbox, just omit the "/"

If you have been using bogofilter with kmail you will already have a wordlist. This can be used at server level, too, so you won't have to start training from scratch. The trick is to set this before the procmail recipes:

This is not a complete guide to setting up a server, but notes on how to set up the server to work as you expect in KMail.

Mehr Platz auf dem Bildschirm in KMail bekommen

Symptom: You are using KMail under KDE 4.2 or later on a netbook, and find that the new Aggregation display leaves you little screen space

Solution: In 4.2 you have a new set of icons next to the quick search bar. You can use these to choose a different theme and a different aggregation. If you want to change the look so that a mail uses a single row instead of two rows, go to - the tooltip says Select View Appearance (Theme) - and change the theme to Classic. If you want to disable grouping by date, change the aggregation to Standard Mailing List. Now your KMail will look exactly like it did in earlier versions.

In 4.4 and 4.5 these settings were moved to the main menu, View -> Message List -> Theme and View -> Message List -> Aggregation

Symptom: You still lack screen space, and would prefer more visible lines at the expense of font size, but your attempts only partially work.

Solution: In Settings -> Configure KMail -> Appearance -> Fonts you can select Custom Font and change the setting for each component in the list. This is when you discover that your folder list and the message bodies do use the fonts you want, but the message list still has too large a font.

Now you have to look at that set of new icons at the top right, close to the search box, for - the tooltip says Select View Appearance (Theme). Choose Configure, then Appearance tab. There is a list of Content Items, and below that a mockup of column headers. Each one of those column headers needs to be clicked on, and your new Custom font set. At the end of this the message list will display in the same font as the rest of your layout.

In later versions that don't have those icons you can make the changes by right-clicking on the Message List headers, and selecting Theme -> Configure -> Appearance Tab Again, you need to work with the header of each column.

Un-configure KMail folder tool tips

Symptom: You are using KMail under KDE 4.2 or later on a netbook, and find that the tooltips over folders hide too many folder names

Solution: Right-clicking on the header of the Folder List now brings up several more configuration options. One section is headed Display Tooltips, and the choices are Always, When Text Obscured, Never. When Text Obscured is handy for folders that have long names, so that only part of the name is displayed. Folders where you can see the full name won't pop up the tooltip.

Un-configure KMail message list tool tips

Remove Alternate Line colourings

In System Settings -> Appearance -> Colors -> Colors, for each color set except Common Colors (which doesn't have it), change the Alternate Background to be the same as the Normal Background.

Mandriva and Mageia don't use the name System Settings. As in KControl, the KDE 3 control centre, they name it "Configure your Desktop" to distinguish it from "Configure your Computer", a.k.a. the Mandriva (or Mageia) Control Center (MCC). Other than this name change, the method is as described above.

With the KMail 1.10 shipped with KDE 4.1 or newer, right click on the folder and select Rebuild Index (you can do the same from the Folder menu).

With earlier KMail versions the process is slightly more complicated. Close KMail. In Dolphin, navigate to where your mail is stored (typically in ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/) and look for index files associated with the affected mailbox. There will be two or three, and be easy to spot. Delete them. They will be recreated when you re-start KMail. You will have lost the mails that had disappeared, but the rest of the mail should be visible again.

Solution: This problem is most likely due to corrupted index files, see issue "You are losing mail" above. So just follow the advice given there.

You get the error "Unable to fetch item from backend" when entering IMAP folder

There are a number of possible reasons for this and it's something the KMail team hopes to tackle in time. Meanwhile, there are some work-arounds:

Work-around 1

edit ~/.local/share/akonadi/mysql.conf

Under the [mysql] section, add:

binlog_format=row

If this doesn't work, try work-around 2 (below).

Work-around 2

This one is mostly a matter of restarting so KMail can fetch those pesky items... Some possible steps:
Use Alt + F2 or Konsole to type: kquitapp kmail, then wait a minute, then akonadictl stop, wait a minute, type akonadictl start, wait a minute, type kmail. This stops KMail (closing all windows), stops the KMail backend, starts the KMail backend, starts KMail. Having a working internet connection increases the chances of success. Sometimes, you can also just do kquitapp kmail, wait a minute, and start KMail again. Often, a few restarts seem to be needed. It is unclear what is the reason for this, but on bad network connections it is more likely to happen.

Your mails are not being sent, without error messages

If KMail does not send mail without saying anything, the 'agent' responsible for 'dispatching' the mails can be stuck. Of course, you need to ensure you have proper network connectivity for mail to be send!

To remedy this, it might help to abort the current action and re-start it. First, quit KMail by using KRunner (Alt + F2) or Konsole and typing: kquitapp kmail. Note that a normal Alt + F4 or File -> Quit does not do the trick! Wait a minute, then start KMail again. Now start akonadiconsole using KRunner (Alt + F2) or Konsole. Go to the Mail Dispatcher Agent, do a right-click and abort the current action. You will most likely get some error messages popping up. Go back to KMail and choose File -> Send Queued Messages. Now it might work. If not, instead of aborting the current action, try toggling the offline/offline status of the Mail Dispatcher Agent or restarting things like mentioned in the workaround 2 of the problem above this one.

Note

akonadiconsole can be quite helpful for a number of situations as it shows all the 'agents', the separate components of the KMail backend. You can stop and start them, put them in offline mode, abort ongoing actions etc. It can be very helpful when things get stuck.

Problem: Link in einer E-Mail lässt sich nicht öffnen

Solution: You should add "%u" or "%U" to the Firefox executable in the settings. If that is not present KDE assumes that the application is not capable of handling remote urls (http) and hence creates a local copy first.

Problem: You get an authentication error message

Authentication support is not compiled into kio_smtp. The message will stay in the 'outbox' folder until you either fix
the problem (e.g. a broken address) or remove the message from the 'outbox' folder.

Solution: Install the sasl-devel-package and recompile kdepimlibs. E.g. for SUSE the package is named cyrus-sasl-devel and you install it with the command

yast -i cyrus-sasl-devel

When running cmake to compile kdepimlibs, you will see:

-- The following external packages were located on your system.
-- This installation will have the extra features provided by these packages.
[...]
+ cyrus-sasl

This usually only affects self-build distros.

Problem: You can't find your Distribution Lists

Your correspondents complain about your bottom-posting

Symptom: Your correspondents use mail agents that routinely top-post, and they complain that they have to scroll down to read your replies. You, on the other hand, post to mailing lists, where it is a requirement that you bottom post to maintain the natural order of reading.

Solution: Highlight the portion of your received message to which you want to reply, before hitting the Reply icon or keyboard shortcut. The composer window that opens will quote only the section that you highlighted and your correspondents will be able to see your reply without unnecessary scrolling.

KMail spellchecking doesn't work with the Deutsch dictionary

Symptom: Your default dictionary is set to "Deutsch", but when typing in German, the spell-checker doesn't alert you to mis-spelled words.

Solution: Change your default dictionary to "Deutsch (Deutschland)". It's worth remembering, too, that you can associate different dictionaries to each Identity, and also by using the View menu on a Compose screen, you can choose to have the dictionary used displayed while composing a message, and change dictionaries, using that, when desired.

Error: Could Not Determine Resource Status

Symptom: When fetching mail, you get an error message reading like:

Error while getting folder information.
Could Not Determine Resource Status
An attempt to determine information about the status of the resource
Unable to get information about folder INBOX.customflags.The server replied: Mailbox does not exist, or must be subscribed to.,
such as the resource name, type, size, etc., was unsuccessful.
Technical reason: Could Not Stat Resource

Problem: Kmail is slow

Symptom:Kmail is really slow to get your mails.

Solution: It might be that the spam tool you're using is slowing down Kmail. If you used Kmail tools menu to add a spam tool and added Spam Assassin (for example) then try another one. I noticed that bogofilter is much quicker. You'll need to remove the 1st one and add the 2nd. You'll then need to train the spam tool you just added (bogofilter): KMail Anti-Spam Tools

Symptom: You just copied your mail folders from an earlier version (see "Migration" above) and now Kmail is really slow to respond shortly after it starts up, for at least several seconds with Kontact burning 100% cpu.

Solution: Work through all your saved message folders and Mark all messages as read, from either the Folder menu or right-click on the folder in the tree view side panel.

Symptom: You experience very long delays when sending messages, and KMail is frozen while you wait.

Solution: There was a bug in the various Release Candidates for KDE SC 4.4 which caused KMail to do lengthy searches for matching addresses. Updating to the full 4.4 should cure the problem.

Symptom: When you type in the composer window, characters appear very slowly.

Possible Solutions: This is a known bug. Some have reported that disabling then re-enabling desktop effects may help. Others have reported that switching to a desktop theme, other then Oxygen, works.

Problem: Cannot save SMTP password - kwallet is unavailable

Symptom: When saving your SMTP password in the KMail SMTP configuration dialog you get a "kwallet is unavailable" message.

Solution: You need to reset the KWallet configuration for KMail.

Stop KMail

Start KDE Wallet Manager

Open Settings -> Configure Wallet

Delete the Kontact and KMail entries (Kontact or KMail entry may not be there)

Save and close KDE Wallet Manager

Start KMail

Enter the SMTP password in the Configure Account dialog

Save - answer yes to the KWallet dialog

KMail mit anderen Desktops oder Anwendungen

Problem: KMail startet nicht

Symptom: You want to start KMail from a minimal desktop environment like fvwm2. It does not start.

Control your Roaming profile's connection

Symptom: You set up a Roaming profile to access your home server while you are on the road, but it keeps trying to connect even when you are at home. Auto-connection is disabled in the setup screens.

Solution:Settings -> Configure KMail -> Accounts -> Receiving (tab) -> (select the account to exclude) -> Modify ->General (tab), uncheck Include in manual mail check. This will exclude the profile when you hit the download icon, but the profile will still be available from the drop-down list, making it easy to get your mail while away from home.

KMail2-Probleme

KMail2 doesn't send mail

Some users find that mail does not go out, and it appears that smtp is missing, even though the Settings page looks correct. It has been reported that this is cured by opening akonadiconsole and adding Mail Dispatcher Agent.

If the computer was suddenly turned off in suspend mode (e.g. by a power cut) sometimes e-mails simply stay in the outbox without being sent, but no error message is generated either. This may be due to the fact that the Mail Dispatcher Agent is set to "offline" in the configuration file during suspend and is not changed back due to the "crash". Edit the following file:

~/.config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_maildispatcher_agent

and change

[Agent]
Online=false

to

[Agent]
Online=true

Clean start after a failed migration

In case migration from KMail 1 to KMail 2 fails or you have weird problems after it, you can try to do a clean import of your data, instead of migrating the existing settings. Be warned, that needs more manual setup, so do only if you are confident with setting up again your KMail accounts, and it can generate a large amount of network traffic for IMAP resources.

2. Remove old Akonadi database and config - delete the following folders

~/.local/share/akonadi

~/.config/akonadi

Delete also the files starting with akonadi from

~/.kde4/share/config

3. Restart Akonadi server

akonadictl start

4. Add back the accounts

Now it is time to add back your account. You can use KMail (Kontact) for it, or you can use the akonadiconsole tool.

In KMail: Settings -> Configure KMail -> Accounts and use Add.

If you use IMAP, add a new IMAP E-Mail server . If you want disconnected mode (so you can read the mails offline), enable it on the Advanced tab. Be sure to check that you are subscribed to all your important folders.

You might already see a Local folder resource. This points to a local maildir folder. You can either modify this to point to your existing maildir folders or you can add a new resource for local mails.

When adding a maildir resource you can choose between KMail Mail Folder or Maildir. Unless you have a mixed folder containing both maildir folders and mbox files, you should choose Maildir. For independent mbox files, like the one in the /var/spool/mail, you can set up a new MBox folder.

Add the POP3 accounts as well. In case you have multiple Local Folders set up, choose on the Advanced tab the destination folder where the newly downloaded mails are put.

For all accounts, configure the mail check interval. For Local folders disable interval checking and also disable Include in manual mail check in the Retrieval options.

Add the sending (SMTP) accounts.

5. Fix your filters, identities and favourite folders

If you have client side filtering (common with POP3 mails), go to Settings -> Configure Filters and fix the destination folder for the filters, they most probably are wrong. Otherwise mails will end up in folders you don't expect.

Spam filter (at least in version 4.7.3 and earlier) does not work as expected in that the rule that the wizard creates does not send spam to the folder you have defined.

The workaround for this is to change the "spam" and "spam unsure" (if the spam filter you use support that) from looking at Status-fields in the header X-Spam-Status to look "Anywhere in headers" for X-"yourspamfilter"-Classification: SPAM or unsure. Look at the filters the wizard creates and copy the "contains" part. Example for Spambayes: X-Spambayes-Classification: spam and X-Spambayes-Classification: unsure

You also need to verify the identity settings and set the sent-mail, drafts and templates folders to point to the right folders. To do that go to Settings -> Configure KMail -> Identities, modify the identity, go to the Advanced tab and modify the above mentioned folder settings.

Check also that your Favourite Folders are the ones you have chosen before.

6. Initiate a mail check

Start a mail check for your accounts. I suggest doing it per account

First do for IMAP, if you have.

Next is to check (import) your local mails. One solution is to do a full check in one go File -> Check Mail In and select the local account, the other is to click one by one on the folders, that should initiate the check for that folder (alternatively right click on the folder name and select Update Folder).

The initial import might be slow and could use a lot of memory, especially in case you have folders with a large amount of mail. In that case per-folder check is preferred. In case the check (complete or for one folder) is finished and the memory usage is still high, you could restart the Akonadi server - as seen above - or just the maildir agent, if you use akonadiconsole. Don't worry, this high memory usage is only for initial import.

Initiate a check mail for POP3 resources.

Hopefully after these steps, you will have a much nicer KMail experience.

Local Folders is added over and over

In some cases you might end up with a maildir account pointing to a certain place (like $HOME/Mail), but you still see a Local Folders folder in the folder list with Inbox/Outbox/Trash/Drafts/etc. subfolders and KMail keeps putting mails there, especially sent mails.
The problem is that certain folders are marked as special folders (system folders) and if you don't have them, KMail cannot operate correctly. That is the reason why it keeps re-creating that folder.
A this time there is no easy way to change this in the UI for all types of special folders. Here are what you can do:

The Sent-Mail, Drafts and Templates folder is configurable for each identity. Go to Settings->Configure KMail->Identities, select your identity, click on Modify, go to the Advanced tab and set the folders to point to the right place.

The default Inbox is configurable for each POP3 account. Go to Settings->Configure KMail->Account, select your POP3 account, click on Modify go to the Advanced tab and set the Destination folder.

For IMAP accounts you can configure the Trash folder. Do like above. The setting name is Trash folder.

The most problematic part is the Outbox. First, locate specialmailcollectionsrc in your KDE configuration directory ($HOME/.kde4/share/config or similar). It contains something like this:

[SpecialCollections]
DefaultResourceId=akonadi_maildir_resource_0

Now start akonadiconsole, on the Agents tab, locate your local account in which you want to have your Outbox folder, click on it and note the identifier that appears in the lower part ( akonadi_maildir_resource_XXX or similar). Put this identifier in the above shown specialmailcollectionsrc, by replacing the existing one.

After that restart akonadi (you can do from the akonadiconsole, Server->Restart Server or from command line with

akonadictl restart

Now remove the Local Folder that you don't want to use anymore.

If it keeps reappearing and the Mail Dispatcher Agent still crashes, you need to do one more thing in akonadiconsole. Go to the Browser tab, find the outbox you want to use, right click on it, Folder Properties, Attributes tab, enter SpecialCollectionAttribute then Add, double click on the Value near the SpecialCollectionAttribute and enter outbox. Add also another attribute, the attribute name has to be ENTITYDISPLAY and the value ("outbox" "mail-folder-outbox" "" ()) (just copy paste from here). Restart akonadi and now you should be able to remove completely the unneeded local folder account.

If you "lost" your Trash folder and want to set a new folder to act as Trash, you can use the same approach described above, but for the SpecialCollectionAttribute value enter trash .

Tipps und Tricks

Add a Tag to aid searching

You must first define your tags, which is done in Settings->Configure KMail->Appearance->Message Tags. Now you will find that the (right-click) context menu, under Mark Message, offers you the choice of your defined tags.

Watch threads

If you want to follow a thread, right click and choose Mark Thread -> Watch Thread.

From this point on all messages on the thread that starts in this message will be marked as Watched.

Watch your own threads:

This is useful in case you are registered to a mailing list such as kdepim-users@kde.org and want to filter out the threads you participate in.

Create a filter to mark all your incoming messages to a mailing list as "Watched"

Currently the script will translate from English (en) to Hebrew (he), you probably need another type of translation. To change that settings look inside the script for the phrase $from_language = 'en' and $to_language = 'he' and replace the 'en' and 'he' parts with the combination you need, if you are not sure, a full list of language codes is available from the ISO 639-2 list.

Testing

before charging innocent E-Mails and translating them first try that on something you don't mind to lose, look in your trash or spam folder. Right click on any translatable item Apply Filter -> Filter Translate A dialog box should pop-up with the original message followed by it's translation.

Troubleshooting

If the script is not working you can test it outside of KMail to narrow down the responsible component. Save a mail message as 1.mbox file and run in the terminal

$~/bin/mail_translate.pl < 1.mbox > 2.mbox

If the output file 2.mbox is not the same as 1.mbox then there is a problem in the script and it shouldn't be used.

Note

this script will only translate the Plain Text parts of an E-Mail message and not the HTML parts.

Get rid of that long mail trail in top-poster replies. You can edit a message and remove unwanted parts by saving it to disk (Save As), editing it separately in a text editor, and then import it again. Just delete the original. This method also works to detach encapsulated messages and keep them as separate messages.

Easily archive all e-mails

Create a filter that matches all messages and copies them to a folder, and then create a shortcut to manually apply this filter. It can be done following these steps:

In KMail go to Settings -> Configure Filters

Click the button on the left and give your filter a name (this will appear on the shortcut also, I simply used "Archive")

Under Filter Criteria, choose Match all messages

Under Filter Actions, choose Move into Folder and select the folder you want to archive to.

In the Advanced tab, uncheck Apply this filter to incoming messages

Then check Apply this filter on manual filtering, Add this filter to the Apply Filter menu and Additionally add this filter to the toolbar.

Click the button with the icon to select a shortcut (I used q because it didn't conflict with anything else)